SO, I’m watching Firefly again (for the billionth time) and I’m having all kinds of SERIOUS INARA FEELINGS YOU GUYS.

This woman. THIS WOMAN. Putting aside the fact that she is astonishingly beautiful, there’s something about her that makes my heart squeeze. She’s a companion, right? She’s elegant and educated and flawlessly diplomatic and polite—her name is enough to get their ship past censors and Alliance officials, and when the crew unfailingly gets themselves into trouble, she’s there on more than one occasion to get them out of it. Men and women alike offer to sweep her off her feet and set her up for life, but instead of living one of the core planets in the lap of luxury, she sticks with Mal and the crew…

She flies a tiny, rundown shuttle (and pilots it better than Mal does), shacks up with a bunch of thieving, rough-and-tumble cowboys and daintily drinks whiskey while observing from the sidelines as they get into alcohol-fuelled bar-brawls…Why? She could have anything she wanted, and she chooses a life of scraping by, of danger, of crime…

It’s because she has a yearning for something more: for adventure, for family, to see something beyond the world she grew up in…and as much as she sometimes protests their lifestyle, she loves it. She’s happier when she’s a part of it.

Plus she’s badass. She teaches Mal how to sword fight. She verbally spars with him better than anyone. She moulds the will of her clients into the palm of her hand. She’s spiritual and sensual, and complicated (even on the brink of death, she can’t bring herself to tell Mal she’s in love with him, and I love that stubbornness, that failing—that she brings love and affection to everyone else, but can’t seem to reach out and take it for herself…)

SO YES SHE’S AWESOME, and my mental faculties are dying, so I can’t ramble anymore—